Oscar Scorecard

I didn't do too badly in my Oscar picks last night. I got 15 of the 24 total Oscar picks correct. And I got all the major ones right with the exception of Best Supporting Actor, which went to Alan Arkin instead of Eddie Murphy. I was happy to see Arkin win, as he deserved it. It was the toughest of all the major awards for me to pick.

I got a total of 51 points in my sister's pool, and I'll know in a few days if I won or not. There were some surprises, but to almost no one's shock, Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar for Best Director for "The Departed." (One of four the film won, including Best Picture.) It was certainly well-deserved after five previous misses. (I read an article online today about how he broke "the curse." Why must everything like this be called a curse? Damn that Dan Shaughnessy.) He was probably the greatest living director without one before last night.

I was also in an Oscar pool at Professor Thom's last night (there was a good crowd on hand for the festivities), and I made all the same picks as my sister's pool. (I'll know soon about that one too.) We also played a game called "Oscar Bingo." It was like a regular bingo board, but instead of numbers, there were actor's names on it, and other phrases on it like, "Thanks Grandparents," "Forgot Glasses," and even outrageous ones like "Dies On Stage," "Falls Out Of Dress." Nobody, to no one's shock, won Oscar Bingo last night.

The show itself wasn't bad. Ellen DeGeneres was OK as host, as she was funny and did her best to keep the show moving. But the major drawback was that it was WAY too long (it went 40 minutes overtime). We could have done without things like that Sound Effects Choir. But I liked Jerry Seinfeld's take on going to the movies. The show turned out to be an Al Gore Lovefest (what a shock), as "An Inconvenient Truth" won for Best Documentary and Best Song. The joke Ellen made about Gore and Jennifer Hudson got probably the biggest laugh of the night (another shock, eh?). But I was very glad to see a lack of political grandstanding on this night (our Commander-in-Chief was not mentioned even once). One thing that always turned me off about many previous Oscar shows is when some braindead Hollywood star gets up and starts ranting about this cause or bashing the current occupant of the White House.

Thankfully, everybody parked that nonsense at the door, and allowed us to just enjoy Hollywood's biggest night. Congratulations to all the winners.